Music in the Background
by MadameLupin
Summary: Another iPod Shuffle Challenge story.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Life with Derek, or any of these songs. Please don't sue I don't own hardly anything.**

**Okay, so everyone and their mothers has been doing the iPod Shuffle Challenge and I couldn't stop myself. So here is the good, the bad and the ugly.**

**Enjoy!**

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1. Independence Day – Martina McBride: Kendra**

Not many people knew that Kendra was adopted. It wasn't something that was brought into everyday conversation. She looked enough like her adopted parents that people accepted it without question.

It was never a question to Kendra.

Madeline and Christopher Michaels had been her family since she was eight years old. She only had nebulous memories of her birth parents. Many of those memories weren't ones that gave her warm and happy thoughts.

Her birthparents were merely names that had fuzzy faces, Lisa and Robert. She didn't even recall her last name.

Robert had been a drunk and an abuser, yet she recalled calling him daddy. Lisa was the subservient trodden housewife whom had protected Kendra with every fiber of her being.

The life changing day was one day deep within Kendra's memory when Lisa had sent her to the fair with a few dollars telling her not to come home till dinner.

She had the time of her life at that fair. Sadly, it had come crashing down when she arrived home. The house was gone. A burnt shell of a broken home.

Kendra never got the details, she didn't want them. In her mind Lisa had finally gotten freedom and had won Kendra's too.

And every time that day rolled around Kendra always whispered, "Thanks mom," when she laid a lone rose on the stark granite.

**2. Strong Enough To Break - Hanson: Derek, slight Dasey**

He had been a broken record, playing the same tune over and over. It hadn't bothered him till he met her. Casey McDonald for some unknown reason has forced him to look in the mirror and _not_ like what he saw.

Ever since she'd come into his life he had slowly began to remold himself, however unconscious the act was. But now it was conscious. He strove to be better, to become someone other than his reputation.  
  
It had taken Casey coming into his life to make him realize that there was more to life than having a string of girls wanting to date him and being good at hockey**.**

**3. Punishment – SheDaisy – Casey, Dasey**

Usually my head overruled my heart. It was the more logical course of action. Not this time. This time my heart had gone faster than my mind. It knew long before I did that I loved Derek. I wish it had told me before I had gotten myself stuck.

Stuck between telling Derel exactly how I feel and between pretending I don't want him, that I don't love him. Stuck in a doomed relationship that Noel doesn't even know will fail.

I know that Derek feels the same way, he has too. With all the looks, the fighting, the constant displays of jealousy those aren't normal brotherly signs of affection.

But I don't think we could survive the stigma, at least not yet. For now I'll take my punishment.

**4. Cleaning This Gun – Rodney Atkins: Derek**

"Now Daddy. I know you mean well but please, for the love of god, don't threaten, maim or other wise frighten him in anyway."

I hadn't been paying much attention to my eldest daughter's list of forbidden things I had been instead thinking of what this boy could be like and he was praying it wasn't the second coming of my former self. I knew what went through a teenage boys mind and having Shannon going out with one of those wasn't an appealing thought.

Her brown eyes met mine expectantly and I nodded in agreement with whatever she had said. "Okay honey." It seemed to appease her. Shannon would never forgive me if I ruined her first real relationship, nor would Casey for that matter.

**5. At the Beginning – Richard Marx and Donna Lewis: Dasey**

Senior prom was supposed to be perfect. It was to be my Cinderella ball minus turning into a pumpkin at midnight.

I had the perfect dress, perfect hair -- perfect everything. The only thing missing was my Prince Charming. How could I have _ever_ considered him that?

All my so called princes were nothing but lying, cheating, insensitive creeps who walked all over me.

Snorting in anger I buried my face in my hands. "How could he?!" I demanded of the night in despair.

Bobby had ditched me for his ex-girlfriend, Melissa.

At the prom of all places.

"Case?"

Blinking through tears I lifted my head to look at the source of the voice. Derek.

He approached me, hands stuffed in his pants pockets looking nervous and scared – I'd never seen him look so unsure.

"I thought you weren't coming?"

Derek had made a point of informing me at every turn that I was a loser for even considering coming to such a lame school sponsored dance.

"I'm not. Emily called me and told me what Bobby did."

He sat on the concrete next to me; it was than I noticed he was wearing just a plain polo and jeans.

I must've looked surprised because he blushed, "I'm not about to have my princess' night ruined now am I?"

"Derek?" I was so confused.

He smiled at me, seemingly regaining his composure. "Come on Casey. There are better places to be right now than here where you'd be miserable the entire night. Now Emily, Sam and I are going to show you a better time. Now let's go Cindy."

My lips quirked into a smile and I took his hand, "Alright. Led on Prince Charming."

**6. Someday – Nickleback: Abby and George**

This was it. The final straw.

"I can't take this anymore!" Abby yelled throwing her hands up in the air with uncontrolled frustration as she spun away from her husband.

George bowed his head as he leaned onto the counter top trying to regain some sense of self. "So what do you want Abby?" His voice was barely controlled.  
  
The fighting was constant now and days. And to be honest it always had been. Only after Marti's birth there had been a lull but now it was on full blast.

Everything set them off. A trail of mud into the house, an unmade bed – there was a laundry list.

Hands on her hips she paused, "Divorce."

**7. Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood: Emily and Casey**

"Poor, poor Aaron." Emily cooed mockingly as they entered Casey's bedroom in a fit of giggles.

Casey fell onto her bed, "He'll think next time won't he now? No more cheating on girls or his car pays the price!" as the baseball bat thudded to the floor.

"We're evil." Was all Emily could say as she relived keying her ex-boyfriend's car wishing she could see the look on his face when he saw the damage to his baby.

**8. Lost in the Moment – Big & Rich: Dasey**

Derek hadn't been surer of anything his entire life. This was the moment he'd been waiting for, he knew it.

Him and Casey in holy matrimony. Who would've guessed that this would happen when they had met? Definitely not them.

He could imagine his fifteen year old self scowling with disgust in a corner.

The music started playing pulling everyone's attention to the doors. Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat he waited for the love of his life to come out on the arm of her father.

And when they did he didn't even see Dennis, his eyes stayed glued to Casey completely lost in the moment.

**9. Skin – Rascal Flatts: Lizzie**

There on her right arm was the bruise. It had been there for longer than normal and finally Nora had taken her to the doctor.

Now here she sat with her mom and George reading an old Highlights magazine. She was nervous, her stomach was churning with butterflies and the what if's danced in her mind.

"Lizzie McDonald." The smiling nurse beckoned gesturing for them to follow her.

Dr. Olsen was waiting for them when they entered; he had a sad smile on his face as he stood to greet her parents.

There was something wrong.

"The blood tests came back." The doctor began not quite looking at them as he looked at the folder in his hands. "I'm going to be blunt here, Lizzie."

He met her eyes now. "You have cancer."

And Lizzie felt her world crash into a million pieces.

**10. One Week – Barenaked Ladies: Dasey**

The entire McDonald-Venturi family didn't understand Casey and Derek's relationship. Not even a little bit. At first it was easy, they fought and pranked.

But now, two years in to the new life and everyone just thought they were odd. They still fought and pranked but there was an undercurrent of affection, however backhanded it was.

And always when asked when they'd make up both would laugh under their breath and say:

"Give it two days and they'll say they're sorry."

Normal people didn't function this way, at least that's what they thought. But Casey and Derek were never normal.


End file.
